Waltz for the Moon

 인사 / Waltz for the Moon   

 There are certain things in life that should remain forgotten.

That was the one thing JaeJoong learned from rehab; forget all the shitty things he’d done in the past so he could effectively start his life over. So for the past six years, he spent majority of his waking hours blocking memories of how much of a fuck-up he used to be. He learned to deny himself of meaningless things people call ‘memories’ and ‘emotions’.

Did it make him feel like a mannequin? Yes. A pretty damn good-looking mannequin, in fact. After many years of practice, he was proud to say that he could now be attacked with almost any painful memory and immediately dismiss it without wanting to literally kill himself.

Enter success kid meme here.

The down side was that most days, his life felt like nothing but a series of blurs. A lot of his Friday nights lately included fading images of faceless men and women in very formal attires and their finest jewelry, dancing and drinking and chatting in the ballroom. The music, the laughter, and the chatter all seemed like a distant memory to him. He didn’t even know how or why he learned how to waltz.

The only thing he could remember clearly was her face, her big brown eyes staring up at him and her porcelain skin slightly flushed from dancing; he remembered because that face was the one thing that sparks a flicker of warmth in his otherwise cold and dreary existence.

He remembered, because that same face was barely inches away from him. And that distant memory in the ballroom? That happened ten minutes ago.

Ten minutes ago, he had led her to the balcony after twirling around like idiots through countless songs. He knew he should be savoring the moment: the crescent moon dimly hovering over the city of New York, her warm breath on his neck, and the feel of her satin dress and bare back as he held her in his arms. But he couldn’t.

That would require him to succumb to having feelings, and that was just a risk he just wasn’t ready to take.

 -------

“If you didn’t plan these events,” JaeJoong absentmindedly twirled his girlfriend’s hair around his finger. “I wouldn’t even be here.”

“Oh please,” JiHyo rolled her eyes playfully. “If you didn’t own this building, I wouldn’t recommend this venue to my clients.” She chuckled and almost patronizingly added, “But yes, I’m very grateful.”

The whole ball scene wasn’t exactly JaeJoong’s thing. He wasn’t very fond of socializing and dancing. Drinking, on the other hand… he was very good at that.

“Ah, I forgot to tell you,” JiHyo lift her head from his shoulder. “She arrived this morning.”

JaeJoong didn’t remember ordering a mail-order bride, but he pretended to be excited in a lazy sort of way to please her. “Wow, really?”

She laughed. “You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.” He agreed. She knew him so well.

“See for yourself,”

He turned around and his heart stopped as soon as he spotted her. Not as in like ‘oh-my-God-she’s-so-gorgeous-that-my-heart-just-skipped-a-beat. It was more like in the ‘Fuck-I-ate-too-much-fats-and-now-I’m-having-a-heart-attack’ way.

Her dress was made of white sateen, appearing much softer and more comfortable than the crisp, shiny fabric majority of the women in the ballroom were wearing. Her wavy, dark brown hair framed her all-too familiar smiling face.